Online searches for ‘capitulate’ soared because of Grimes’ new song

‘We Appreciate Power’ brings us a fave new word

Grimes’ first single in a long while, “We Appreciate Power” featuring frequent collaborator HANA, dropped just last week. It’s the first single from her forthcoming fifth studio album, and the first major release since 2015’s brilliant Art Angels.

“We Appreciate Power” is, according to the Canadian musician, inspired by the North Korean band Moranbong and written from a pro-AI perspective as a ‘Girl Group Propaganda machine’ that “use song, dance, sex and fashion to spread goodwill towards Artificial Intelligence”.

The lyrics blur the lines between human and machine, asking us to stop resisting our future AI overlords and elevate the human race into a hyper technologically advance future. “What will it take to make you capitulate?” Grimes sings.

Since the song’s release, fans have been poring over its concept, and brushing up on terminology that may help them when AI takes over, apparently. Online searches for the term ‘capitulate’ spiked 70 per cent on November 29, the day of the song’s release. Searches for ‘what does capitulate mean’ went up 500 per cent, and ‘define capitulate’ by 200 per cent. The searches ran in parallel with a spike in searches for Grimes’ name too, with most definition searches happening in the United States and Canada.

‘Capitulate’ is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “to surrender often after negotiation of terms” and “to cease resisting”. Will you capitulate when Sophia the Robot removes herself from fashion show front rows and summons her robo-army? Capitulate, upload your mind to the cloud and greet our incoming overlords, or face permanent deletion guys.